1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hearing aids. The invention, more particularly, relates to a hearing aid to fit into or to be worn behind the wearer's ear. More specifically, it relates to a hearing aid having an input transducer, an amplifier and an output transducer, which hearing aid has one or more modes where it amplifies and modulates ambient sound for the wearer. The hearing aid has a short range data connection for communication with an external audio signal source that may stream an audio signal to the hearing aid. The invention furthermore relates to an external device providing an audio stream to the hearing aid. Also, the invention relates to a method of signal processing in a mobile communication device.
2. The Prior Art
Modern, digital hearing aids comprise sophisticated and complex signal processing units for processing and amplifying sound according to a prescription aimed at alleviating a hearing loss for a hearing impaired individual. Furthermore, connectivity is an important issue for modern digital hearing aids. Advanced hearing aids may have means for interconnection as a pair with the advantage that timing and relative signal strength of an audio signal received by the microphones provides valuable information about the audio signal source. Furthermore, hearing aids have been able to receive telecoil signals for many years, and this technology has been regulated by the ITU-T Recommendation P.370. Several hearing aid manufacturers have developed respective proprietary wireless communication standards with external devices for wireless streaming of audio signals in an electromagnetic carrier from e.g. a television via the external device.
Hearing aids have commonly been stand-alone devices, where the main purpose has been to amplify the surrounding sound for the user. However, there has been a significant development within smartphones and Internet access via these smartphones. Recently, the Bluetooth Core Specification version 4.0—also known as Bluetooth Low Energy—has been adopted, and there has been developed various chipsets having a size and a power consumption falling within the capabilities of hearing aids, whereby it has become possible to connect a hearing aid to the Internet and get the benefit from such a connection.
The purpose of the invention is to provide an improved audio streaming functionality between an external device and a hearing aid.
The invention, in a first aspect, provides a method of signal processing in a mobile communication device, said mobile communication device receiving an audio stream as input and delivering a processed audio stream as output, said mobile communication device having a data connection providing access to the Internet, a short range data connection for delivering a processed audio stream as output to a specific hearing aid, and said mobile communication device being adapted to run software applications downloaded from the Internet, said method including downloading from a digital distribution platform a software application for emulating the signal processing in said specific hearing aid, acquiring a data set containing hearing aid settings for said specific hearing aid, adjusting the emulation software application by means of the data set containing hearing aid settings for said specific hearing aid, processing the received audio streams, by means of the emulation software application according to said hearing aid settings, generating control signals indicating that the processed audio stream has been processed in order to meet the hearing aid setting requirements of a specific hearing impaired user, and providing said control signals and said processed audio stream to said specific hearing aid via said short range data connection.
The method according to the invention employs the data processing capacity of a mobile device to generate an audio signal to be sent directly to the speaker of the hearing aid. This limits the number of audio decoders required in the hearing aid as the audio streaming signal is processed before being delivered to the hearing aid.
The invention, in a second aspect, provides a hearing aid to fit into, or to be worn behind, the ear of a hearing aid user, said hearing aid having an input transducer, an amplifier and an output transducer, and said hearing aid being provided with one or more modes where it amplifies and modulates ambient sound for the wearer, wherein the hearing aid has a short range data connection for communication with an external audio signal source, for receiving an audio signal streamed from said external audio, and wherein the hearing aid has at least one further mode in which the audio signal received from said external audio signal source is presented directly to the wearer via the output transducer in case the audio signal source has been amplified and modulated by said external audio signal source.
Hereby the digital signal processing including amplification of the audio signal for compensating for the users hearing loss is handled in the external audio signal source. The hearing aid according to the second aspect of the invention just has to receive the data signal, demodulate and decode the received audio stream without having to process the signal further.
The invention, in a third aspect, provides a mobile communication device having a data connection providing access to the Internet, a short range data connection, a processor and a memory, wherein the mobile communication device is adapted to run software applications downloaded from the Internet, and to acquire a data set containing hearing aid settings for a specific hearing aid required to aid a specific hearing impaired user, wherein said mobile communication device is adapted to emulate the signal processing in said specific hearing aid, wherein the mobile communication device upon processing an audio stream to be streamed to said specific hearing aid processes the audio stream according to said hearing aid settings, generates control signals indicating that the processed audio stream has been processed in order to meet the hearing aid setting requirements of said specific hearing impaired user, and provides said control signals and said processed audio stream to said specific hearing aid via the short range data connection.
The mobile communication device is adapted to emulate the signal processing in said specific hearing aid, and when the downloaded software application provides the general operation of a hearing aid and the retrieved hearing aid settings for the specific hearing impaired user provides the personalized settings, so the software emulated hearing aid provides an output signal similar to the one the hearing aid leads to its speaker.
The invention, in a fourth aspect, provides a computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed in a mobile communication device perform actions when an audio stream is received as input in said mobile communication device, comprising providing a software application for emulating the signal processing in a specific hearing aid, acquiring a data set containing hearing aid settings for said specific hearing aid, adjusting the emulation software application by means of the data set containing hearing aid settings for said specific hearing aid, processing the received audio streams, by means of the emulation software application according to said hearing aid settings, generating control signals indicating that the processed audio stream has been processed in order to meet the hearing aid setting requirements of a specific hearing impaired user, and providing said control signals and said processed audio stream to said specific hearing aid via a short range data connection. The computer-executable instructions provide a software application—or a so-called App—to be downloaded from digital distribution platform on from the Internet. When running on a mobile communication device—a smartphone, a music player, a tablet computer or a laptop computer—the software application acquires a data set containing hearing aid settings for said specific hearing aid from a remote server.